Hi

Post navigation

Welcome to my new blog: Inventing Interactive. My friend Terry, who runs Sknitter, mentioned that keeping a blog fed is a lot of work. We’ll see how it goes — but if I don’t start I’ll never know.

I’ve been involved in interactive media design, in one form or another, for almost 20 years. I’ve seen it change a lot in that time. From an scrappy collection of outsiders to a core part of our daily life. From a field where everything you did was an experiment that broke new ground, to an established profession with big-budget accounts and professional roles and responsibilities.

But it’s still just the beginning. And I believe that it’s critical that we still see this field as one which is still in its infancy. One we’re still inventing.

Here’s what I’m hoping to put into this blog:

Past:
For what many think of as being a new field, there’s a rich and varied past. Before the internet there were cd-roms, interactive video, art installations, science-fiction fantasies, research, services, experiments. There’s some pretty cool stuff back there.

Present:
We’re in the midst of a revolution. While there may be a lot of junk being designed — but there are amazing things happening, too. These are things that are going to shape the future, so it’s our responsibility to design them towards a future we want.

Future:
The field is still in its infancy. There’s so much still to discover and invent. And there are experiments and new ideas being tested all the time. Who knows where they’ll lead, but these are the sparks of what may come next.

The focus is going to be on design, but there’s no way to avoid technology, business, and social aspects.

Not every post here is going to be epic, and some may seem downright trivial, but hopefully the combination of them will be interesting. Perhaps even start some conversations. Let me know what you think.